


What I Go To School For

by goodnight_tinyhumans



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Derek and Stiles are the Same Age, M/M, Stilinski Family Feels, and Kate is a bit of a jerk, geeky!Stiles, jock!Derek, the boys are oblivious to everything
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-18
Updated: 2012-11-18
Packaged: 2017-11-18 23:50:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,509
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/566694
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goodnight_tinyhumans/pseuds/goodnight_tinyhumans
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Derek is having a hard time with chemistry. Stiles is one of the best students in the class. </p><p>This couldn't possibly go wrong.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What I Go To School For

**Author's Note:**

> Written in tag-fic form [here](http://goodnight-tinyhumans.tumblr.com/post/35823808170/all-i-can-see-is-geeky-stiles-having-to-tutor), full fic finished last night. 
> 
> Because fluff is awesome and cute oblivious boys are cute.
> 
> Title thanks to my high school nostalgia and [this](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1fcf62rxCfg) Busted song.
> 
> Fun fact: I know little to nothing about baseball. So if anything is glaringly wrong please let me know and I'll fix it.

Derek Hale willed his fingers to unclench from the fist they’d formed, crumpling the test page in front of his eyes. The bright red D circled at the top of the page stared back at him accusingly. The next words- _see me after class_ \- scrawled in Ms. Argent’s messy hand made his heart skip a beat. Derek had never actually been in trouble in school; he wasn’t quite at the level of genius of some people in his classes, but he’d always managed to do well enough to make his parents happy and keep his place on the baseball team.

But it was only halfway through the semester; hopefully he’d be able to fix it without too much trouble.

# #

“I’m really getting worried about you,” Ms. Argent told him seriously once the last student had filed out of the room. She didn’t so much walk toward him as she stalked, reminding Derek a little too much of the lion documentary his sister had been watching the previous night. “I’ve seen your transcripts, Mr. Hale. Your marks are pretty good, other than in this class.” She settled into the desk in front of him, crossing her legs and leaning her chin in her hand. “I like you. You’re a good kid. I’d really like to set you up with a tutor, and I know someone that I think would help you a lot, if you’re okay with that.”

“Yeah, of course, whatever I can do,” Derek mumbled, focusing on the desk rather than Ms. Argent’s wolfish grin.

“Perfect, I knew I could count on you,” she said happily. “I’ve got Stiles in my next class, and I’ll get him to come by after school, so be back here at three, okay?”

“Okay.”

“Later, Derek!”

Derek grabbed his backpack by one strap, all but fleeing the room to the sound of her soft laughter behind him.

# #

By the time three o’clock rolled around, Derek was just anxious to get the meeting with his new tutor over with. He had a dim picture of Stiles Stilinski in his mind; they’d been in the same class for a few years in elementary school, but they hadn’t shared one for almost seven years, and Derek could only really remember that he was the Sheriff’s son, a quiet kid who kept to himself and pretty much only hung out with Scott McCall, one of Derek’s teammates. He wasn’t sure what he was expecting when he made his way back to Ms. Argent’s second-floor classroom, but the skinny kid bouncing around excitedly with his hands shoved deep into the pockets of his Green Lantern hoodie was not it. The kid was talking a mile a minute, chattering on about that night’s homework, and he didn’t seem to notice when Derek kicked the door closed behind him.

“Oh, Derek, there you are,” Ms. Argent called out. Stiles turned around quickly, pulling one hand out of its pocket to keep his glasses from flying off his face. “Derek, this is Stiles. He’s one of the top students in my second period class.”

“Aww,” Stiles ducked his head, and Derek was amused to see the blush creeping up his neck to settle across his cheekbones.

“Now, I know you guys probably won’t get up to anything today, since it’s Friday and you both probably have busy weekends ahead of you,” Ms. Argent said with a wave of her hand. “But I’d like you two to chat for a bit and get to know each other, set up a day or two a week that you want to meet up, that kind of thing.”

“Sure thing, Ms. Argent,” they chorused, then lapsed into a bit of an awkward silence as she left the room.

“Soooooo…” Stiles said. “I take it you’re having trouble? I mean, obviously, if you’re agreeing to a tutor and stuff, you must be having at least a little bit of trouble, like a miniscule amount, right? Not that I’m implying anything about your intelligence or anything, I don’t want to offend you,” he finished hastily, glancing at Derek from behind his glasses like he thought he would get annoyed.

“No, it’s… fine? I guess?” Derek said, a little confused at how someone could actually speak that many words in that short a breath and not die from lack of oxygen. “I did okay in science and everything last year, but we didn’t really have to do anything, you know? It was all memorizing definitions and making baking soda volcanoes.”

“Yeah, definitely, chemistry’s a pretty huge jump from intro science. But it’s not impossible, right? We’ll get you through it just fine.” He paused for a moment, throwing Derek a grin that seemed wide enough to split his face in two. “We can meet up twice a week to start, switch to more or less, whatever works for you. I’m a pretty flexible guy.” Stiles made a face as what he said registered in his mind.

“Well, I have practice Tuesdays and Thursdays…” Derek began.

# #

Derek felt a little like he’d been run over by a tornado when he left the school and headed over to his Camaro, still hearing the echo of Stiles’ voice in his ears even though they’d waved goodbye a few minutes ago. How had he ever actually thought the kid was quiet? He definitely talked more than Derek did, that was for sure. Their conversation had stretched into twenty minutes- about eighteen more than Derek had honestly expected- and Derek had discovered he actually liked the guy. Stiles was definitely smart, Ms. Argent had been right about that. He’d already decided what he and Derek would be covering in their first study session, and given Derek a link to a video online somewhere to watch before they met up on Monday.

“I’m not going to make you take notes or anything like that,” he’d told him, “but it’s actually a pretty neat site to check out, in general. And this guy’s a god. He can make anything sound easy.”

“Sure,” Derek agreed, fiddling with the strap of his backpack as he nodded. “I have to go, though, I need to pick my sister up from band. See you Monday?”

“Yeah, Monday, library, sounds good.” Stiles smiled again, flashed him a quick salute, and headed off down the hall.

Derek shook his head as he left in the opposite direction. Studying with Stiles was definitely going to be interesting.

# #

Derek spent the weekend before his first meeting with Stiles studying; he’d watched the video Stiles told him to about four times (and he was right, it had actually made some sense of a couple supposedly basic concepts that he had had a hard time grasping in the ten minutes Ms. Argent had devoted to them) and had re-written two-thirds of his notes from the semester.

“You’re studying for your tutoring session?” His older sister, Laura, asked him when he headed back up to his room after family dinner on Saturday night. “I thought you were going in the he-man sports freak direction this year. What happened?”

He could still hear her laughing five minutes after he slammed his door.

He got to the library right after the last bell rang on Monday. He stood awkwardly outside the door for a moment, realizing he’d completely forgotten to get Stiles’ phone number on Friday. He didn’t see him inside, either, and had no idea what his last class was.

“Fuck my life,” he mumbled to himself, squaring his shoulders and pushing the door open. A cursory search through the stacks left Stiles nowhere to be found, and Derek back at square one, standing near the entrance to the library looking like a little lost puppy.

For all of ten seconds.

“Hey Derek, yo, hey, sorry I’m late, Dr. Deaton likes to spend the last fifteen minutes of bio philosophizing with absolutely zero regard for those of us who have prior commitments.” Stiles’ voice hit Derek’s ears a split second before Stiles’ hand hit Derek’s back, stopping him from skidding past Derek and into a cart of books waiting to be shelved. “Aw, look at that, you saved my life, now you’ll never get rid of me,” Stiles joked, straightening first his hoodie then Derek’s leather jacket.

“Just what I always wanted, a caffeinated squirrel,” Derek deadpanned, surprised when Stiles threw his head back and laughed.

“That is like, the single most astute judgement of my character, dude, you have no idea,” Stiles told him when he’d finally calmed down. “Now come on, there’s a table over here in the corner near all the dead poets that nobody ever goes near.”

The hour passed quickly, Stiles quizzing him briefly on what he’d learned from the video and from Ms. Argent’s class that morning before they moved on to reviewing Derek’s notes from the beginning of semester. 

“See, it’s not so hard, we’ll have you blowing things up in no time,” Stiles said later as they packed up to leave. Stiles took considerably longer than Derek did- he’d somehow managed to spread out across three quarters of the table, leaving Derek with just enough space for his chemistry textbook and notebook- so Derek waited for him as he shoved notebooks, candy wrappers, and about twenty various pens and pencils haphazardly into his backpack.

“I think the school in general might have a problem with that,” Derek pointed out.

“Nah, I only got kicked out for a day that time I got a mixture wrong and blew off Lydia Martin’s eyebrows,” Stiles replied with a shrug. He turned, taking in Derek’s shocked look, and smirked. “She was fine, don’t worry. And it wasn’t entirely my fault. It was only, like, sixty-seven-point-nine percent my fault. Someone from the last class mislabelled a compound.”

“Why are you tutoring me again?” Derek muttered as he followed Stiles out of the library.

“Because I’m awesome,” Stiles tossed back over his shoulder.

“Yeah, whatever,” Derek replied, but he could feel a tiny smile on his face anyway.

# #

“Okay, so how about the answer to number twelve?” Stiles asked a few weeks later. They had fallen into an easy rhythm, meeting up every Monday and Wednesday, and Derek was starting to finally get entirely comfortable with him in a way that he wasn’t with most people. The problem with the baseball team- and his entire reputation as a jock, really- was that his friends tended to be the people who postured and vied for attention, putting way more importance on superficial shit. Derek still liked them, of course, but they didn’t usually quite understand that he himself was more of a reserved person. Stiles got it, and that was part of why Derek felt at ease around him; he was entirely comfortable being himself, and he was okay with Derek being himself, too.

They were seated at what had quickly become their table, and, as usual, Stiles was paying absolutely zero attention to Derek, who was resolutely making his way through that day’s homework problems.

“You haven’t actually checked that I’m doing them, you know,” Derek grumbled as he threw his pencil down on the open notebook page, pressing the heels of his palms into his eyes. “Angry Birds is not an acceptable study tool.”

“I don’t need to study, I finished my problems in class,” Stiles replied with a wave of his hand and the trumpeting noise that signalled a perfect score erupting from his phone. “And I can see that you’re doing them. That’s good, practice, progress, all that fun stuff.”

“I’ve been practicing for twenty minutes while you re-perfect your score. Come on, Stiles. Can you at least just check over what I’ve got? I’ve got a game tonight and I wanted to finish these before I went over.”

“Yeah, okay.” Stiles put his phone down and pulled Derek’s notebook in front of him. “Purple pen,” he ordered, holding out a hand and making grabby-finger motions until Derek picked up the requested object and dropped it in his palm. Derek watched in silence as Stiles went up and down the paper, making little marks here and there before finally leaning back with a serious look on his face.

“What?” Derek asked.

“Well, Derek, I’ve got some bad news…”

“What!?” Derek yelped.

“Looks like you’ll be able to head off to your boring baseball game early. Good job on the homework, slugger,” Stiles told him with a grin. He yelped as he tried to dodge away from the fist Derek swung jokingly at him, but only managed to meet the blow with his elbow instead of the shoulder Derek had been aiming for.

“You are an asshole,” Derek told him firmly. “And baseball isn’t boring.”

“Sure it is.”

“When was the last time you watched an actual game?”

“Like, fourth grade? My dad made me watch some playoff and his team lost and he kinda flipped out a little bit and we haven’t watched it since.” Stiles shrugged like it was no big deal, but there was a twist to his mouth that Derek didn’t like very much.

“You should come tonight,” Derek blurted out before he could stop himself. He watched Stiles’ eyes widen behind his glasses.

“You want me to… come to your baseball game?”

“Well, yeah, I mean, can’t let you keep operating under the misconception that it’s boring,” Derek mumbled. “You don’t have to. But Scott’s playing, too. I don’t know, bring your dad or something. I’m biased, but it’s actually really fun.”

“I’ll think about it,” Stiles said quietly. “But in the meantime,” he continued brightly, visibly pushing his thoughts away, “it’s time to get down and dirty with covalent bonds.” He wiggled his eyebrows for emphasis. There was a joke there somewhere, Derek knew it, but just the fact that Stiles thought he was funny was enough to make him chuckle as he reached for his textbook.

# #

Beacon Hills won the game 5-2, and Derek hit the final home run of the game. He whooped and hollered along with the rest of the team as they all made their way back to the locker rooms after the game ended, headed for the showers.

He stayed longer than he normally did, content for once to just let himself relax under the steady stream of water, because once he left he wouldn’t have peace until he went to sleep that night. The locker room was empty when he finally left, and he dressed quickly and simply; jeans and a t-shirt were the most comfortable thing in the world after spending two hours in a baseball uniform.

He whistled a few quick notes as he left the locker room, already digging around in the pocket of his gym bag for his phone, when he recognized the tall, lanky figure leaning against the wall at the end of the hall.

“Stiles! You actually came.”

“Yeah, I guess.” Stiles pushed off of the wall, folding one arm behind his head to fidget with the back of his neck. “I was starting to think you’d left already. That was a really long shower, dude. Like build-a-freaking-ark long.”

“Maybe I was thinking about covalent bonds,” Derek joked as he started toward the exit again. He thought he caught a flash of surprise on Stiles’ face, but the other boy fell into step behind him.

“Someone is, uh, dedicated to their studies,” Stiles huffed.

“Yeah, well, _someone_ has been riding my ass about it,” Derek snorted. He thought he heard a choke from Stiles, but nothing else followed, so he shrugged it off. “Hey, want to go grab a slice of pizza or something? Laura gets really clingy when I do something she deems worthy of bragging about, it’s weird, and I’d like to avoid that as long as humanly possible. We might have to walk, though, she might have jacked my car.”

“I have my Jeep, so, yeah, sure, pizza sounds good. I just need to, uh, call my dad? He gets worried when I stay out later than I say I will…” Stiles’ voice trailed off into a mumble, and Derek turned to see a blush creeping up his neck. “I’m sorry,” he groaned, “I’m totally lame. I know. I just-”

“You aren’t lame, Stiles,” Derek interrupted him. “Quit it. Come on. Call your dad and let’s go.”

They eventually decided against pizza in favour of grabbing a couple crappy burgers and driving out to one of the secluded lookouts overlooking Beacon Hills. They settled down, cross-legged across from each other on the hood of Stiles’ Jeep, and made small talk as they ate. When they were done they leaned back against the windshield, looking out across the town.

“It’s not that I don’t like baseball,” Stiles said quietly after a few moments of silence. “I actually used to really like it. My mom and my dad were both really into it, and we would all go to games and stuff, or watch them on TV. We’d bet on them using chores.” Stiles smiled, and Derek could see the twist at the corner of his mouth again. “She died when I was in third grade. Dad tried to keep it going, you know? It was like he thought that it could still be our thing, even though it wouldn’t be _our_ thing anymore. And then there was that game. It was his and mom’s favourite team, and… they lost. It shouldn’t have been a huge deal, but it was. It just couldn’t make him happy anymore, so he stopped watching the games. When I was a kid I always told him I’d try and join the baseball team in high school, make him proud, but…” he waved a hand, gesturing at Derek. “Obviously, that didn’t work out. It’s still painful, even though it feels like it shouldn’t be.”

“Stiles…” Derek stopped, not sure what to say. “I’m sorry,” he settled on finally. “And I’m sorry that I made you come tonight.”

“Nah, I feel like she would’ve wanted me to enjoy it. It was one of her favourite things, she wouldn’t want me to cut it out of my life for good.” He looked down at his hands, fidgeting with the strings of his hoodie. “I’m sorry, too,” he added. “I probably just freaking ruined your evening with my depressing issues. You should be out celebrating or something.” He offered Derek a small smile, and Derek pointedly did not notice the way his eyes looked like they were shining with tears behind his glasses.

“I think I like it right where I am,” he told him. He scooted closer, bumping Stiles’ shoulder with his own, and they sat there, not talking, not quite touching, until it was time to head home.

# #

“It’s actually pretty awesome, we got to use these weird little machines to look at different elements and you can see their spectrums, it’s a way of being able to tell what an element is. Not always very efficient, but it’s really cool to look at.”

“That’s nice, dear, but could you chew first before your next story about how amazing chemistry is now?” Derek’s mother asked mildly. “Honestly, I’m thinking about buying the Stilinski boy a fruit basket or something. At the rate you two are going, you’ll end up being some sort of scientist instead of playing ball for a living.”

“At the rate those two are going, they’ll be getting married next year,” Laura said from her side of the table. She paused, rolling her eyes when Derek and their parents all turned to stare at her. “What? All you talk about these days is Stiles, Derek. You see him twice a week in person and all your other waking hours are spent texting him, talking about him, or powering through your homework so you can impress him. Come on.”

“I don’t-” Derek fumbled.

“She does sort of have a point, son,” Mr. Hale pointed out. “I personally don’t care one way or another. You would have to do far worse than marry the Sheriff’s son to beat out your Uncle Peter for the black sheep title, anyway.”

“Oh my god, I am not marrying Stiles,” Derek protested, raising his eyes to the ceiling rather than look at the evil, traitorous people around him. “He’s my tutor. He helps me with my stupid chemistry homework. We’re friends. And he’s definitely nicer than you guys.”

Laura coughed dramatically into her hand, hiding a word that sounded suspiciously like ‘liar’.

# #

_How’s the date going?_

_Does he love u yet?_

_Hey bro when u r done with lover boy mom says pick up some milk_

“That doesn’t sound like catalytic reactions,” Stiles observed, amused, the third time Derek’s phone went off in the span of five minutes. Derek turned, glancing pointedly at the laptop open in front of Stiles as he slid his phone into his pocket where Stiles couldn’t possibly see his sister’s stupid texts. Between Wikipedia, TVTropes, and StumbleUpon, Stiles had enough windows open that the tabs were just an endless row of x’s, no room to show even a letter of each window’s title.

“Are you freaking out about the exam yet?” Stiles asked him, obligingly closing down his browser and shutting off his laptop.

“Well, I wasn’t,” Derek complained. “I think I’ll do okay, though. I mean, I’ve picked up my grade enough that even if I bomb it, I’ll still be okay…”

“But?” Stiles prompted.

“But I actually feel pretty good about it,” Derek finished. “I’ve gotten a lot better at this.”

“I know, I’m awesome,” Stiles joked. “And you’re awesome. You _have_ gotten a lot better. And you’re going to ace the exam, I know it. But only if you finish this…” Stiles rattled off a practice question from one of their old worksheets, and Derek set to work solving the problem, steadfastly not noticing that Stiles was now fiddling with one of his pens again. The boy had a bad habit of picking up a pen and drumming with it; Derek had gotten used to that in the month and a half that they’d been studying together, but what always got him was the way that Stiles would eventually get bored with the drumming and start chewing on the pen cap. It was distracting to say the least.

Derek spent a good ten minutes trying to focus on the problem and ignoring the way his eyes kept wandering over to Stiles’ lips and long fingers before something finally clicked in his head- and not about the chemistry.

 _Fuck_ , he thought to himself. _I really do like Stiles._ The revelation wasn’t exactly earth-shattering; Laura’s constant barrage of texts and teasing about his _boyfriend_ was at least good for something. But it was one thing to think about something hypothetically, and quite another to realize that it was entirely, one thousand percent true. Derek snuck another look at Stiles, only to see him looking back at him, a smile quirked around the pen cap caught between his teeth.

“Need some help?” Stiles asked innocently.

“You have no idea,” Derek muttered, silently cursing himself as Stiles moved his chair closer, right into his personal space.

_I am so screwed._

# #

The last few weeks of the semester passed in a blur. Now that Derek had finally come to terms with the fact that he was crushing hard on his tutor- and wasn’t that a cliché- he’d thought he wouldn’t be able to think of anything else.

Boy, was he wrong.

The entire class had been focused wholeheartedly on reviews for the upcoming chemistry exam, and his tutoring sessions with Stiles were no different. Even Stiles’ ever-present distractions had changed, switching from games to multitudes of textbooks. Their two hours a week switched to ‘whenever school ends to whenever the hell we’re done’, which normally meant when the school librarian kicked them out to migrate to the local coffee shop, where the baristas had quickly started remembering their exclusively black coffee orders.

The morning of the exam began bright and way-too-early for Derek. His alarm, set to go off at seven thirty, was pre-empted by approximately twenty texts from Stiles, a verse-by-verse rendition of Call Me Maybe that didn’t help the quickly-growing ball of nerves in his stomach.

“What.” He growled when Stiles answered the phone.

“Just making sure you were up. I’m heading over to pick you up. Get dressed. I have coffee.” Stiles hung up, leaving Derek to groan and cover his eyes without even his tinny voice for company.

“It’s too early for this,” Derek complained to his empty room as he forced himself out of bed.

True to his word, Stiles’ Jeep pulled into his driveway fifteen minutes later. Derek made his way slowly out the door, quietly locking the door behind him.

“It’s too early for this,” he repeated as soon as he was settled in the front seat of the Jeep, fingers wrapped around the coffee cup Stiles shove into his hand.

“Absolutely,” Stiles agreed. “But we’re doing it anyway. And you’re going to ace this exam. I promise. Now, covalent bonds…”

Derek stammered his way through Stiles’ questions, only a little distracted by the fact that, holy shit, covalent bonds, could Stiles have been flirting with him that far back? By the time they’d reached chapter eight- isotopes- firing questions back and forth, Derek had decided that there wasn’t really any way that Stiles could possibly feel the same way about him. He’d never given so much as a hint, and Derek wasn’t about to try and force himself onto him.

By the time they split up to find their respective exam rooms, Derek was starting to freak out a little. As soon as Stiles left his sight, his calm started to dissipate, leaving him with the feeling that he wouldn’t be able to do well enough on his own.

 _Stop freaking out. You’ll do fine, Batman,_ his phone relayed to him almost as soon as he’d started to contemplate just walking out of the exam.

 _And turn your stupid phone off_ , came the next text a few seconds later. Derek smiled, doing as directed. Stiles’ belief that he would do well did what all the other calming techniques he’d read couldn’t; obviously if a guy that smart thought he’d do okay, he would do okay.

# #

“Stiles!” Ms. Argent called out to him as he got up to leave the room. “Can I talk to you for a minute?”

“Sure, Ms. Argent, what’s up?”

“I just wanted to thank you for tutoring Derek for me this semester,” she told him, folding her hands in front of her. “You did a very good job. He was saying just the other day how grateful he was to be able to stay on top of things and stay on the baseball team because of you.”

“Well, thanks, Ms. Argent,” Stiles said. He could feel his face flushing in pleasure at the thought of Derek being thankful for him, of all things.

“Oh, Stiles,” Ms. Argent murmured, shaking her head. “You’ve got it bad, don’t you? Poor thing.”

“Uh, wh- what?” Stiles stammered, the blush creeping higher. Was he really that obvious?

“Boys like Derek are only looking out for themselves, Stiles,” Ms. Argent told him quietly. “I know he’s tempting. But do you think he would have put in that much effort if his spot on the team hadn’t been on the line?”

Stiles bit his lip, thinking of the night after the game, of how Derek had wanted to spend time with him instead of anyone else, how they’d talked. Stiles knew, deep down, that Derek wasn’t like that, but the seeds of doubt had been planted in his mind. He glanced up at Ms. Argent.

“Yeah, okay,” he muttered. “Can I go now?”

“Of course.”

Stiles turned and fled, missing the smile that spread across Ms. Argent’s face as she watched him leave.

# #

Unfortunately for Derek and his nerves, Ms. Argent had a fairly strict policy about not handing back exams until every single one- almost a hundred- was taken and marked. The two days between the moment that Derek laid down his pencil and the moment that he walked into the chem lab to see the small stacks of papers laid face down on everyone’s desk were some of the most stressful of his life, the worry broken only by the other exams he had to write.

Derek stared at the thin pile in front of him; he was almost instantly taken back to the one he’d flipped over two months ago to see the D at the top of the page. He liked to think that he’d improved since then… but what if he hadn’t? He took a deep breath, ignoring the excited hoots and depressed groans around him, fingers tracing the sides of the page, before finally just flipping it over to see the mark in the top right corner.

A.

It was an A.

Derek felt the grin spreading across his face. A few of his teammates piled over to check out his mark, whooping at the result and clapping him on the back. He glanced up to see Ms. Argent smiling at him. He could feel a weight lifting from his shoulders, simply from seeing the proof of how much work he’d put into the last two months, but there was one person left to show.

Stiles.

 _Where are you?_ Derek typed quickly, one-handed, under his desk. _Got my exam back._

 _And?_ Came the quick reply.

_A!!!!_

_Good job dude_

_See you after school?_

_Why you don’t need me anymore_

Derek frowned at the last text. What the hell was Stiles talking about? He must be joking. Yeah, that was it. The guy was a never-ending well of jokes and double entendres and the like. There was nothing else to explain it.

Until Stiles wasn’t in the library after school.

Derek did a quick pass of the library, though he’d known as soon as he’d seen their table sitting alone and empty in its corner that Stiles wasn’t going to show. He pushed his way out of the library, heading instead for the corner of the parking lot where Stiles’ Jeep was always parked. He could just see the top of Stiles’ head above the rows of cars, hunched over like he was hiding from something. Or someone. Derek jogged over, backpack bouncing between his shoulder blades.

“Stiles! Hey, Stiles, wait up.” Stiles jerked to a stop, but didn’t turn around, instead staring at the ground in front of him as Derek stopped next to him and reached out a hand to touch his elbow. Derek was surprised when Stiles jerked away like he’d been burned.

“Dude, what’s wrong?” Derek asked, frowning.

“Nothing. I just want to go home.”

“Obviously it’s something-”

“Just stop, Derek, okay? It’s been fun and everything but you don’t have to keep pretending you like me, you passed your exam, you passed the class, you’re safe on the team-”

“What the hell, Stiles?” Derek broke in. “I don’t have to pretend I like you. I like you, okay?” He met Stiles’ eyes, hoping that the unsaid _more than I probably should_ would somehow make itself known.

“I don’t get why you would,” Stiles muttered. He turned back towards the Jeep fumbling with his keys and almost dropping both the keys and his bag before Derek gently took them both out of his hands, setting them on the ground before giving him a light push to lean against the car door.

“Because you’re funny,” Derek began. “Because you’ve always got like sixteen things going at once, and you somehow still manage to find the time to check on me. Because you care. Because you’re smart as hell but you never make me feel like an idiot for not knowing as much as you do. Because you text me at random times with the weirdest little pieces of trivia and song lyrics and freaking science jokes and they make my day.” Derek stepped forward, crowding Stiles against the car and meeting his eyes. “Because _I like you_ , you idiot.” He paused, stepping back a little when Stiles just stood there and stared at him.

“Yeah, okay, I’ll just be over here,” he mumbled, moving to walk away. He got a few paces away before Stiles surged forward, throwing his arms around his neck and pressing their lips together. As kisses went, it wasn’t the most elegant Derek had had, but it was by far the best as he settled his own arms around Stiles’ waist and leaned them back against the Jeep. When they finally broke apart, Stiles’ grin matched Derek’s.

“Get it now?” Derek asked.

“You know, I think I may need a little tutoring,” Stiles joked, waggling his eyebrows in Derek’s direction. Derek laughed, pressing another kiss to the tip of Stiles’ nose as he pulled away.

“I think we can manage that. Now start up the damn Jeep, I’m buying you coffee.”


End file.
